1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to formation of oxides of silicon, and more particularly to the formation of thin oxides for use in microelectronic devices.
2. Background
Advances in semiconductor manufacturing technology have led to the integration of millions of circuit elements, such as transistors, on a single integrated circuit (IC). Not only have interconnect line widths become smaller, but so have the dimensions of metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs). MOSFETs are also commonly referred to simply as FETs.
It has been known that in order to manufacture smaller and smaller FETs with desirable electrical characteristics, the effective thickness of the gate insulator layer had to be scaled along with the linear dimensions of these FETs. As the linear dimensions of FETs have scaled down into the deep submicron region, the requirement of forming the correspondingly extremely thin gate insulator layers has become a major challenge for semiconductor manufacturers.
Electrical, mechanical and manufacturing requirements for gate insulating layers include, but are not limited to, low density of interface states, low defect density, and good uniformity.
What is needed is a method of forming ultra thin oxide layers on silicon substrates, while simultaneously achieving a low density of interface states.